Sunday, 15 June 2014

Sword Art Online Episodes 1-25 review

While
playing a popular video game, Kirito finds himself, along with several thousand
other people, trapped in the game. The only means of returning to the real
world is to defeat the game. Can Kirito make it out? And who will he meet along
the way?

Based
on a light novel by Reki Kawahara, Sword Art Online suffers greatly from an
incredibly unnecessary and deeply disturbing second half. The uncomfortable
elements introduced later on clearly serve no other purpose than too presumably
titillate the show’s target demographic. The show is not clever enough to be
making any sort of commentary; it is pure wish fulfillment as exhibited by the
blank slate protagonist Kirito.

It
leaves a very fowl taste in the viewer’s mouth upon completion. Frankly, there
are thousands of other shows one could watch that would leave a better impression
than this. The first half, at the very least, has some redeeming aspects. The
concept is interesting enough to carry the series for that first bit but the
during the Fairy Dance arc is a long downward slide for the series it never
recovers from.